MAMGA queen 1940 looks back at age 90 on the elegance and festivity of first black Mardi Gras

Aline Jenkins Howard, 90, was first queen of the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association in 1940. Today, at a retirement home, she looks back with joy at those festive days. (Mike Kittrell/Press-Register)

MOBILE, Alabama -- Robust, good-humored, and talkative, Aline Jenkins Howard, 90, recalls being the first queen of the Mobile Area Mardi Grass Association.

At a retirement home in West Mobile, a Mardi Gras wreath on her door, the long-time educator looks back to when she was 19 years old and the belle of the ball.

“I was a foolish girl,” she says of her teen years, laughing.

But she was sensible, too.

Raised an only child by a teacher mom and preacher dad, she learned that hard work and good conduct count.

“It’s not how much you make,” she says. “It’s applying what you have.”

In a city divided by the color line in that era, there was no Mardi Gras within the community of Mobile’s black citizens.

But that all changed.

At age 19, MAMGA Queen Aline, 1940

Founded in 1938, MAMGA put on its first parade in 1940, a tradition vibrant today in its Mammoth Parade on Mardi Gras Day.

Howard recalls that her reign came about in a distinctive way.

The Utopia Social Club made her one of the seasons’ debutantes.

“It was the first club to present debutantes,” she said.As a news article reported in 1940:

“The beauty of the carnival celebration will be accentuated by the youth and charm of the queen and her court. Chosen from the season’s debutantes and young entrants into society, the queen, her ladies in waiting, and maids represents a refreshing note in the social life of our section.

“Her majesty, Queen Aline, is Miss Aline Jenkins, one of the season’s popular young ladies and the daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Samuel Jenkins.”

The king that year — “King Elexis I, monarch of all Colored Mobile,” as the news stated — was Alexander Herman.

Herman’s daughter, Alexis Herman, MAMGA queen in 1974, served as Secretary of Labor in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton.

Queen Aline did not ride in the 1940 parade, however.

“We sat and watched from the Elks Lodge,” she said.

There was dancing — they jitterbugged to a dance band, and “eased in a little alcohol” — and a season of teas and breakfasts.

For members of the society, Howard says, the season was not only fun, but “an inspiration” to young people “to improve.”

In the decades that followed her reign, Queen Aline studied at Tuskegee University and Alabama State, then headed north to graduate school at Columbia University.

In New York she married Frank Howard, who was from Barbados.

After starting her teaching career in New York, she saw an advertisement for teaching jobs, of all places, in Mobile, Alabama.

Her career back in Mobile included being a teacher and administrator at Dunbar School, and Blount High School.

Even though she is modest about her long-ago royalty, she still relishes carnival time.

As the oldest living member of a MAMGA court, she is part of a group called the Royal Family.

She has partied in the retirement home where she resides.

And she has attended recent Mardi Gras balls.

If she feels up to it, she will go downtown this year on Fat Tuesday.

Her favorite part?

“I don’t go for throws,” she says.

The lively music is what captivates her, she says, especially her beloved, Blount Leopards marching band.